Well the noisy holiday is over, on my bicycle ride yesterday I found lots of places in the streets that were litered with the leftovers of firecrackers and fireworks. But the sky was sure pretty on Sat. night. DH wasn't home so it was quiet around here. I actually worked on clients quilts most of the weekend, but did do something fun. A friend gave me a copy of a new purse pattern, she knows I love to make bags of all shapes and sizes. This one is the "Mini Bow Tucks" bag by Penny Sturges for Quilts Illustrated. For me it is the perfect size, not too big and heavy, just right for all my stuff. This second photo shows all the inside pockets, and there are 2 on the outside, so lots of places to put things. I love this fabric from Blank Fabric, if you remember I made a set of Bosa Nova gift bags from it too. I still have some left and have a vest pattern I hope to use it on. Anyway, I also made up a new purse pattern from Debbie Bowles of Maple Island Quilts, it's called "Wallet & Grommet" I added an outside pocket for my cell phone and 2 on the inside for stuff. I still have a few other new bag patterns to try out. I got 9 new ones at Spring Quilt Market. Anyway, purses are fun to make, and they don't take as much time as making a big quilt. In my last post I mentioned quilting two quilts that were done by my daughter-in-law's mother, well they left for Montana before I took a photo. One of them you can see on Patchalotmore blog, the one for the Plumpkin (our mutual granddaughter) and hopefully when the binding is on Polly will take a photo of the other one when she presents it to her wonderful neighbor. (hint, hint)

Hello everyone, long time no see. Being President of Minnesota Quilters Inc. does take up a bit of time in my schedule, our annual show was a week ago and it was wonderful as usual. Lots of hard work but very fun and rewarding. The quilts were absolutely incredible, both in the judged and the non-judged and the special exhibits. There will be photos soon on the MQ web site. Here is one quilt I want to show you, it was pieced by Kathleen Winters, a fellow MQ Board member and I quilted it for her, we won a "Show Chair's" ribbon. I have quilted for Kathleen before and her color choices are always amazing and this quilt was no exception, very dramatic. I needed to come home a day early, so missed the last day of the show and all the work of take down, so sad (hee hee, really didn't miss the hard work) but it was important for me to be home. My DS and family came to visit from Montana and we were celebrating a very special graduation. My granddaughter Mary Amanda graduated, WITH HONORS, in just 3 years time. She skipped her junior year and still came out on top of her class. We are sooooooo proud of her. She will now go on to school at University of Montana, Missoula for a nursing degree. So anyway here is a photo of our sweet girl. There is another quilter blogger that shares some of my wonderful grandchildren and she sent a package to me a few weeks ago, it contained 2 quilts. One for a neighbor of my Montana family, she is a doctor and helped our grandson Jack when he was severely burn on his leg, and has also helped with many other "sick" days with Kathryn. As a thank you Polly wanted to give a quilt, so Grandma Marcie pieced and Grandma Mary quilted and Polly will add the binding. A great family thank you. The second quilt was for Kathryn, our youngest grandchild, who one day when she wasn't feeling well complained that the quilt on her bed really wasn't hers, she wanted one that her Grandma made just for her. So again Grandma Marcie pieced and Grandma Mary quilted and Mom will again add the binding. They are almost finished and I will put up photos soon. It is great having the family here even though I haven't seen much of them. They went to the lake for a few days but are expected back today for the rest of the week. Poor Chris had to return home for work but the rest of them are having a great time visiting old friends and family.

Boy life gets busy when you're having fun. So much going on in the family and with my quilting world. I just got back from Spring Market in Pittsburg and saw so many beautiful fabrics and quilts and new toys and new patterns. It is always quilting overload. Cedar Canyon Textiles, whom I work with, introuduced 2 new items this market, a pattern for a whole cloth, painted, Coneflower and a new set of Holiday rubbing plates. Of course I made samples for the booth and I thought I would share them with you. The Coneflower was painted by a client and I did the quilting but I made up a little Holiday table runner using the new plates. Here are 2 of the blocks, if you go to the CCT web/blog you can see a little 9 patch. The other thing I did was using Laura Murray's Star Builder and some hand pieced Mariner's Compass blocks. This quilt may go into Laura's new book, I am so excited about that. More to come on that subject.

Hey, can you believe it I finally have DS's quilt off the machine. This quilt was a long time in the process, I actually started it about 2 years ago to hang on a very large wall in their house. Oh well, now it will go on his bed. I think it is a very masculine looking quilt, just great for a guy, and it being a "Carpenter's Star" it fits the receipient well as he is a carpenter. So this is quite a large quilt, about 93x105, I don't like square quilts so I added the 2 stripes top and bottom. I used up a lot of my stash, didn't buy one single new fabric, even had some flannel to use on the back. I will use up scraps for the binding so this will be one scrappy quilt. I really do like it and hope DS does too. So then one day last week I went to a friends for a play day and we finished a project we planned a year or so ago. We each bought one of the "Laundry Basket Quilts" patterns, the Poinsettia and the Daffodils. Well here is my Daffodils, and my Poinsettia is still in the works. These are a lot of fun and go to gether pretty quickly, they are cut and paste, or fusible if you prefer. Now I have about 6 little wall hangings that I need to find time to quilt. Oh well, customers first. I have quite a few of those now so probably won't hear from me for a while. Have a Blessed Day.

Last week end I had company for dinner, thought I'd share a few photos of the cutest little people I know. They are Alexander (3 1/2), Aurora (1 1/2) and Gabriel (4 mo.) They are the children of Lizzy (granddaughter) and her hubby Andy.

Well I know I said I was going to show you the quilt I did for DS#3 but it is still on the machine. But I did do something so fun, I was in a 2 day class with Laura Wasilowski and what a hoot. She is so fun to take a class from. But anyway, here are photos of what I accomplished. She teaches fusing, using WonderUnder and it is great to be able to finish a project in a fairly short amount of time. They are art quilts so they are small.

Happy New Year everyone! Today is was very quiet around this house, DH is off in his big truck so no big party for us. So this is not to say I haven't been busy. On Sunday DH and I decided to redecorate our bathroom. After 7 years it was time, and we really changed it, much darker paint on the walls, no wallpaper, and new shower curtain, towels and rugs, the whole bit. When I finished putting it all together the walls looked really bare. Nothing I currently had matched, well I did find that a small collage done last Feb. fit in very well so that went up. Then the search for fabric and a pattern for more things. I actually found a number of fabrics that will work, but one in particular pleased me, it was a fat quarter I dyed a few years ago, it turned out an odd color so hadn't found a use, and guess what, it matched almost perfectly. So then, what to do with it, I take pictures at every quilt show I go to and also have a huge library of magazines and books. Well looking through some of the photos taken, I passed over a bunch my DS#4 took on a trip up to Glacier Nat'l Park. One he took of pebbles in water caught my eye, the colors were perfect, so it was printed out on Iron On Transfer, transferred onto white fabric, and low and behold, it came out just right. The print got trimmed, 1st border was dark brown to go with the other new things, and then I used the dyed fat quarter for a larger border. I am so pleased with the way it turned out, I named it "The Pebble Beach Pine" and you will see why in the photo. My next post will show you a scrap quilt I made for DS#3. The top is finished, the back needs piecing and it needs quilting, that is all for next week. Until then, have a Happy New Year, stay safe and have a Blessed Day.